Electronic systems for use in restaurants to speed the relay of food orders from customers to the kitchen have long been of interest for their potential to improve service and increase productivity. To this end, various systems have been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,067 to Dorr discloses a remote order entry system wherein waiters enter orders into handheld remote order entry units. The orders are transmitted from the units by RF signal to a host computer which displays them on a CRT in the kitchen. The need to carry orders back to the kitchen is thus eliminated and, moreover, orders get to the kitchen virtually simultaneously while being taken from a customer. A similar system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,569,421 to Sandstedt in which orders are relayed from the handheld portable units to kitchen CRT displays using cabled telecommunications links.
The portable remote order entry units provided by Sandstedt and Dorr each include a numeric keypad and an alphanumeric display and require that orders be entered as numeric codes. These codes are interpreted by the host computer and converted to human language descriptions of the ordered menu items for display to the cooks. While this approach to order entry is technically feasible, it is undesirable as a practical matter because: (1) it mandates numerical coding of the menu, and (2) it requires waiters to think and work in terms of numbers and codes, adding an additional level of complexity to their work. Moreover, entering orders manually on a keyboard using numeric codes is relatively slow, cumbersome and complicated. Also, the computer terminal-like nature of the portable units of Dorr and Sandstedt make them intimidating and difficult to learn for waiters and other restaurant personnel who are often poorly educated and technically illiterate, particularly in so-called "fast food" restaurants. Accordingly, systems such as those shown in Dorr and Sandstedt have limited commercial desirability.
Because of the clear advantages that can be obtained with remote order entry systems there remains a considerable interest in trying to develop commercially practical systems. To this end, the industry has looked for a remote order entry unit which is fast, easy to learn and operate, readily adaptable and relatively inexpensive. As set forth below, the present invention provides a portable remote order entry unit which meets these objectives. Moreover, the order entry concept of the present invention are also advantageous for use in fixed order entry terminals.